Terrorist bomb attack on Iranian scientists kills one, wounds another

TEHRAN — Unidentified assailants riding motorcycles launched separate bomb attacks here on Monday against two of the country’s top nuclear scientists, killing one and prompting accusations that the United States and Israel were again trying to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

...The motorcycle attackers attached the bombs to the professors’ cars and then drove off, detonating them from a distance, according to Iranian media reports. Mr. Abbasi’s wife was also hurt in the blast, the reports said. Last January, a remote-controlled bomb killed a physics professor, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, outside his home....

The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, managed a “major project” for the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the semiofficial IRNA news agency. His injured colleague, Fereydoon Abbasi, is believed to be even more important; he is on the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions list for ties to the Iranian nuclear effort...

Israel and the United States have often signaled that they will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. Neither has acknowledged pursuing sabotage or assassinations there, but both are widely believed to be pursuing ways to undermine the country’s nuclear program...

“They’re bad people, and the work they do is exactly what you need to design a bomb,” said a (U.S.) federal official who assesses scientific intelligence and spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re both top scientists.”

P. J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, did not address the Iranian accusations in detail. “All I can say is we decry acts of terrorism wherever they occur and beyond that, we do not have any information on what happened,” he said.